String Theory

[Dilton]

There´s a war amongst creationist and evolutionists, but there´s also a war amongst big bang inflationists and string theory followers.

I like string theory very much, anyone who wants to know more go to

www.stringtheory.com

[brother vinny]

05-05-2003 @ 11:00 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=88617#post88617)
Dilton:

There´s a war amongst creationist and evolutionists, but there´s also a war amongst big bang inflationists and string theory followers.

I like string theory very much, anyone who wants to know more go to

www.stringtheory.com

Would you care to give a brief explanation of string theory? I think it was used as a plot device in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but I've forgotten what the theory suggests.

[Dilton]

I didn´t know much, but I took a little time to do some research, so here it goes:

The string theory suggests that the cosmos does not have only the 4 dimension inflationists say it has. String theory says it has about 5 or 6 dimensions, but too small for them to be detected. Another curiosity is that strings says that the atoms particles are not in the "dot" shape, like small hard spheres, but instead, that the smallest things that exist would appear like vibrant lines. Strings also say, like some inflationists, that the big bang was one among many others, in such a way that there isnt only one universe, but many others, each one closed on itself and isolated from the rest, and that the big band would represent the beginning of our universe alone, and not of the "multiverse" (physicist Paul Davies, from Australia Astrobiology Centre - Macquarie University, Sidney).
But this same Paul Davies is on a research of a theory that indicates that it is possible a new model of the universe, called Ekyprotic or Ciclical, where the Big Bang would not be the beginning of everything: this new model says that time and space have always existed, and what actually happened was a shock among isolated parts of the multiverse, resulting in a matter expansion similar to the inflationary theory.

Inflationists have a problem regarding this part: at the zero moment of the big bang, where density and cosmic temperatures were infinite. And infinite is something strange, because it isn´t actually a number... how to measure something that becomes each time bigger, indefinitely? The answer is that it is not possible, and inflationists are with their guard open on that subject.

On the other hand, cordists, or string theory supporters, do not have that problem: according to the ciclical model, temperature and density of the universe would not be infinite at any moment. Inside the multiverse, there would be cycles of expansion and contractions, on a trillion year scale. Our universe would only be the start of one of those cycles. More on that is presented by the "boomerang" team using a balloon that flies orbiting the artic.

Another important discovery made recently to put fire on the subject was that on the 7th january, a group of scientists found out that gravity is not an instant force. In other words, if by some "miracle" the sun suddenly disappeared, our Earth would take some time to feel the lack of solar gravity. To be more precise, it would take about 8,5 minutes, which is the time that light takes to come from the sun to earth, and gravity "runs" at the same speed of light, about 300.000 kilometers per second. That amazing discovery was made by researchers Sergei Kopeikin and Edward Fomalont, from Missouri University and from the Nacional Radioastronomy Observatory in the United States, and this discovery matches Einstein´s predictions in his Relativity Theory back in 1915, but only now were they able to actually measure gravity´ speed.
This has some serious implications, one of them being that if light matches gravity speed, the universe cannot have more than 4 dimensions, therefore kickin superstring theory to space, because the more dimensions that exist, the more gravity can propagate, and if existed more dimensions beyond the 4 we know, gravity would be able to overcome light speed. There are, a priori, no other dimensions then. Paul Davies is not convinced with that, and he says that light may not be the highest speed possibe in the universe, even thought Relativity says it is so.

The superstring theory has a dilemma, and it is hard to overcome inflationist theory due to those contradictions. And also, string theory deals with basic characteristics of the beginning of the universe, and their theories deals with ultra-high energies that, at the moment, cannot be even simulated in laboratory, or observed in the sky. So as string theory cannot be fully understood due to it´s energy limitations, it will continue to be just good weird mathematics, but with uncertain relevance to the real world.

[dublczek]

There is a new theory being proposed (which was in Scientific American last month, I think) that light may actually have a variable speed.

[Dilton]

Wow now that would be interesting too.

[dublczek]

Variable speed of light (not the variable speed of life) articles:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0130/p14s03-bogn.html

http://www.aw-verlag.ch/Documents/GravityPotentialCausedByVariableSpeedOfLight.PDF

[Undomiel]

I'm not a scientist (this will be obvious shortly), but out of curiosity, since they've proven the passage of time for an individual can be slowed depending on how close to the speed of light the individual is travelling, does this mean that in zero gravity, that time would slow as well? Err, what I mean is, if light and gravity are intriniscally bound to each other, wouldn't travelling in zero gravity, make you immortal? Or ? Eek, I'm confused.

[Dilton]

Zero gravity means you are under no effects of gravity whatsoever.

You are confusing speed of gravity with the force/power of gravity.

Zero gravity means no effects of gravity around an object, but that does not mean that gravity does not have a speed to make its effect be made upon another corpse.

For example, when you are close to another person, you both mutually have a gravity effect upon one another (very tiny effect), and that effect travels among you two in the same speed of the light.

Got it now?

[Undomiel]

Ahh. Thank you. I get it now.

:joy:

It can be safely said that light and gravity are only related in terms of speed? Perhaps there's some other important relationship between the two. I have to read the article you linked again.

[Dilton]

actually I took it out of a brazilian scientific magazine called "galileu", and I do not know where this research can be found on the net.